You are Steven Spielberg. Your movies are critic-proof. You are considered a genius and the best at what you do.But what movie is Spielberg most famous for? You know which one. The one starring that cute-as-a button alien, Drew Barrymore. E.T., of course. But there's a disappointing part to the E.T. backstory and I'm going to call The 'Berg on it because it makes him a bit of a jerk. From the Wikipedia bio of Satyajit Ray:
In 1967, Ray wrote a script for a film to be called The Alien, based on his short story Bankubabur Bandhu ("Banku Babu's Friend") which he wrote in 1962 for Sandesh, the Ray family magazine. The Alien had Columbia Pictures as producer for this planned U.S.-India co-production, and Peter Sellers and Marlon Brando as the leading actors. However, Ray was surprised to find that the script he had written had already been copyrighted and the fee appropriated by Mike Wilson. Wilson had initially approached Ray as an acquaintance of a mutual friend, Arthur C. Clarke, to represent him in Hollywood. The script Wilson had copyrighted was credited as Mike Wilson & Satyajit Ray, despite the fact that he only contributed a single word in it. Ray later stated that he never received a penny for the script.[27] Brando later dropped out of the project, and though an attempt was made to replace him with James Coburn, Ray became disillusioned and returned to Calcutta.[28][29] Columbia expressed interest in reviving the project several times in the 1970s and 1980s, but nothing came of it. When E.T. was released in 1982, Clarke and Ray saw similarities in the film to the earlier Alien script—Ray discussed the collapse of the project in a 1980 Sight & Sound feature, with further details revealed by Ray's biographer Andrew Robinson (in The Inner Eye, 1989). Ray believed that Spielberg's film would not have been possible without his script of The Alien being available throughout America in mimeographed copies (a charge Spielberg denies).[30]
The problem for me isn't the plagiarism and stealing. That happens all the time. It's the intent behind it. Spielberg stole an idea from a different culture, passed it off as his own, and smugly knew something would get lost in translation and he'd never get called on it. Because it's the same thing the West has been doing for thousands of years. Co-opting someone else's stuff, pawning it off as their's with some sprinkles, bleeding it dry, and collecting their royalties. And while I applaud the free-market principles involved, I'm not above declaring you an Oaf on my blog.
(Now, Bollywood has been lifting off of Hollywood for decades. But Bollywood is crap with a 'K' anyway. And Satyajit Ray was never Bollywood. He was a Bengali filmmaker, which constitutes hell and heaven difference from its ugly Bolly cousin.)
The plot of Ray's The Alien from Wikipedia:
The plot revolved around a spaceship that landed in a pond in rural Bengal. The villagers began worshiping it as a temple risen from the depths of the earth. The alien established contact with a young village boy named Haba (Moron) through dreams and also played a number of pranks on the village community in course of its short stay on Planet Earth. The plot contained the ebullient presence of an Indian businessman, a journalist from Calcutta and an American engineer.
On a personal note: I loved Duel. That's kind of the only movie of his I enjoyed. (The way our disheveled middle-class hero, Dennis Weaver, was able to outflank the oppressive Trucker was a thing of $50 a gallon beauty.) But, to be honest, I didn't even care for Schindler's List. Oooooh, the girl in red is so drenched with meaning...
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